Successful henna removal. Yes, you are reading this correctly.

[Nightshade]

The crazy thing about it was that when I died my hair with Henna (using a packet I'd purchased from LUSH) - i didn't realise it was permanent. They claimed that the colour would fade over time. My own fault for not researching.

That's not your fault at all. That's deceptive marketing at best, fraud at worst.

[forestrainydays]

The same thing happened to me, the packaging said it will wash out after 4-5 washes, that's not a lot at all right? Yeah ...

[forestrainydays]

I just joined this forum after re-reading this thread two times and wanted to share my experience with removing henna. Will share pics if possible, I don't know the rules here


My hair is naturally fine and dark ashy blond colour. Long story short I got bored of it end of March (after 3 years of not touching it except for 2 dyed streaks of hair - the Narcissa Malfoy hair) and bought a henna colour (Henné color Paris cuivre - copper) and it said on the packaging it fades and lasts for only 4-5 washes. I thought to myself: "Nice! Let's try it". I probably did 2 full head applications and 2 glosses at that point.

I liked it and then one of my friends pointed out that I look even more pale with orange hair than before. Suddenly I couldn't unsee it and I began to try to fade it. I used the head & shoulders shampoo + vitamin c powder quite a few times to try and fade it and let me tell you this stuff BURNED my scalp like no other, however it did fade the henna significantly.

Next I tried the B4 Color Remover, since that's what you can get where I live. There were two boxes to choose from, a gray one (extra) and a pink one (ultra stark). I tried both. I did that straight after the vitamin C treatments and my scalp was RAW. It was NUMB and itchy as hell.

Now this is the point where I tell you that I probably used the B4 color remover 10 if not 15 times before I got to a blonde with orangey undertones. Then I had a smart idea (sarcasm) and bought an ash blonde colour to try and make it more ashy. Surprise, it didn't make my hair ashy and also it bleached it a bit (I should've seen that coming). Then I vitamined C that away. I used B4 again a few times got to the same color as before then used the same brand hair dye in dark ash blonde (I just never learn) and my hair turned out DARK BROWN. I immediately drove to a drugstore and got myself more vitamin C. After a few treatments my hair was orange again (yay).

Then I probably used B4 ten times again. For the first few times I sat outside in the sun and left it on for an hour. The one mistake I made was I started rinsing after an hour even though I didn't see any color lifted yet (or reduced or whatever the color remover does). So I used B4 about 3 times for nothing. Then I re-read this post and realised most people leave it on for 3 hours, so I did that. That is when I saw the most difference. After 3 additional sessions my blond hair is here again. Right now I'm sitting with the very last round of B4 in my head with a saran wrap over it and I will rinse it off with the help of head & shoulders grapefruit shampoo in 3 hours.

You might ask if my poor fine hair is damaged from doing the vit C and B4 remover soo many times (probably 30 +) and I am glad to say NOT AT ALL. The B4 remover didn't damage it at all. It feels stringy and dry and sgueaky after you first rinse it but after it dries and i brush it out it's the same sleek fine hair I've always known. The smell also doesn't seem to stick to my hair as much as it did before (especially after using the pink box color B4).

Ps. B4 got on some of my clothes and it bleached them. Does it work the same on dye molecules in clothes as it does on hair?

Ps. 2: I found that the gray box of Color B4 (extra) worked best even tho I figured the pink one should be stronger as It's named ultra stark? It seems that it's imported from Germany because the instructions were in German too. But I figured ultra stark should be stronger than just extra, seems not.

I have pics but I have no idea how to post them here.

[Für immer]

That's not your fault at all. That's deceptive marketing at best, fraud at worst.

Yeah, like this text from a site selling Cultivators' herbal hair dyes: "Färgen är semi-permanent, vilket betyder att den gradvis tvättas ur, men beroende på din hårtyp och antal tidigare färgningar kan resultatet vara permanent."
So they are saying that "The color is semi permanent, which means that the color gradually wash out, but depending on your hairtype and previous coloring/dyeing sessions, the result may be permanent."

So I don't know how to think of their advertizing, because many of those blends do contain henna, and it seems to be this is a disclaimer just to save their own hides from getting "sued".